A poem about life, death and tea

The teacup

After my grandmother died,

I wandered her house looking for traces of her,

Until I found in a cupboard an old china teacup trying to hide,

Ashamed of its stains and chips,

And worn out gold rim, sucked off by countless lips.

Pushed aside over time by ugly mugs, bigger and stronger,

Its fading beauty and lack of utility valued no longer.

Mourning the loss of its matching saucer,

Pushed under a plant pot in the porch,

Before being broken one day by a clumsy granddaughter.

Then I realised that this old object and my grandmother had lived parallel lives,

And the tears flowed free,

As I remembered a different time,

In which my grandmother was full of life,

And her little china cup full of hot loose-leaf tea.